Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Volume 40 | Issue 1
Article 5
1949
Relationship Between Crime Rates and Certain
Population Characteristics in Minnesota Counties
Van B. Shaw
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Recommended Citation
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRIME RATES AND CERTAIN
POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS IN MINNESOTA
COUNTIES
Van B. Shaw
The author is Professor of Sociology in Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri. The following article is a summary of his graduate thesis which was completed at the University of Minnesota in 1946, under Professor George Void as adviser. The
author spent three years in the U.S. Army as Classification Specialist and Occupa-tional Counsellor.-Enlroa.
Purpose and Methods of Study
The purpose of this study was to discover what, if any, charac-teristics of the populations of all eighty-seven Minnesota counties were co-existent with high or low crime rates in those same counties.
The primary method employed was the correlation of each of two crime rates calculated from different statistical sources with population characteristics obtained from 1940 census re-turns. In addition, multiple and partial correlations were pre-pared in order to check clusters of associations among factors "shown to have significant coefficients of correlation with one of
the crime rates.
Materials Involved
Crime Rates. Each of the two crime rates was prepared from
statistical reports in the files of the Minnesota Bureau of
Crimi-nal Apprehension, 488 North Wabasha Street, St. Paul 2,
Minne-sota.
The first crime rate, hereafter referred to as the judicial crime
rate, was based upon convictions in district courts of each of the
counties of Minnesota. Calculation of judicial convictions per thousand population put all counties on a comparable basis. Since in most situations only more serious cases are bound over for district court judgments, this would seem to indicate a rate
based on more or less maj6r crimes. To avoid excessive bias represented by police "raids" in a single year, a five-year average (1936-1940) was used rather than the single 1940 figure.
VAN B. SHAW
Population Characteristics: The population characteristics
with which these crime rates were correlated were chosen from the 1940 census returns for Minnesota counties as procured by the United States Bureau of the Census. Characteristics to be used were selected on two bases: (1) availability and usability of recorded data, and (2) frequent assumption of their associa-tion with criminality.
Two measures of urbanization or population density were cor-related with each of the crime rates. These were (1) total popu-lation of each county, and (2) percentage of popupopu-lation urban (using the Bureau of Census figure of 2500 population as the dividing line between urban and rural) in each county. In the area of education, the median school grade attiined by (1) males and (2) females, 25 years of age and over of the population, was correlated with each of the crime rates. Since Indians are the only non-white racial group that exist in any considerable num-bers in Minnesota, the percentage of the population Indian in each county was correlated with each crime rate. Since foreign birth is often thought to be associated with criminality, the per-centage of the population foreign-born was correlated with each crime rate. Finally, two indications of economic instability in each county were correlated with the crime'rates. 'These were (1) the percentage of the population over14 seeking work and (2) this same group plus the percentag6 in each county on "relief" work.
Results and Interprettions
Table I, below, shows the results of the correlatio i procedure applied to the judicial crime rate and each population character-istic under consideration. The coefficient of correlation of each of the population characteristics in the left hand column with the judicial crime rate (as described above) is shown by the corre-sponding figure in the right hand column. Thus in Table I, the
Table I
COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION OF THE JUDIOAL uRt MBATE WITH CERTAIN POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS IN M IqNESOTA COUNT=ES,
1940.
Coefficient of
Corre-lation with the Population Characteristic Judicial Crime Rate
Total County Population ... .036
Per Cent of Population Urban ... .071
Median School Grade Attained by Males, 25 and Over... -. 096
Median School Grade Attained by Females, 25 and Over ... .033
Per Cent of Population Indian ... .462
Per Cent of Population Foreign Born ... .105
Per Cent of Population 14 and Over Seeking Work ... .360
Per Cent of Population 14 and Over Seeking Work Plus "Re-lief" Cases ... .336
CIME BATES IN MINNESOTA
first line might be read-The coefficient of correlation between
the Total County Population and the Judicial Crime Rate is .036
(remembering that the nearer this figure approaches 1.00 the
greater is the relationship between the two factors and
con-versely, the nearer it approaches 0.00 the smaller is the
relation-ship).
The coefficients of correlation between the judicial crime rate
and the various population characteristics as shown by Table I,
above, indicate no results having statistical significance. The
correlation was highest for the per cent of the population Indian.
However an examination of the statistics underlying this
cor-relation reveals that many counties had no Indian population
whatsoever. Therefore the results of an over-all study of the
eighty-seven counties resulting in a correlation no greater than
that shown here is quite invalid.
Beyond this item, none of the coefficients of correlation can
be said to be sufficient to warrant any judgments concerning a
relationship. Although the range of the judicial crime rate for
the various counties was very small, the characteristics of the
county populations varied greatly. These facts would seem to
justify the judgment that, regardless of its characteristics, a
fairly regular per cent of the population finds its way into the
district courts.'
Table II shows the coefficients of correlation for the crime
rate based on offenses known to police and each population
char-acteristic under consideration. Thus line one of Table
TT
may be
read-The coefficient of correlation between the Total County
Table II
COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION OF THE CRIME RATE BASED ON OFFENSES KNOWN TO POLICE AND CERTAIN POPULATION
CHARACTER-ISTICS OF MINNESOTA COUNTIES, 1940.
Coefficients of Corre-lation with Crime
Rate Based on Offenses Known to
Population Characteristic Police
Total County Population ... 645
Per Cent of Population Urban ... .717
Median School Grade Attained by Males, 25 and Over ... .510
Median School Grade Attained by Females, 25 and Over ... .554
Per Cent of Population Indiali ... .047
Per Cent of Population Foreign Born... ... 2n1 Per Cent of Population 14 and Over Seeking Work... .45
Per Cent of Population 14 and Over Seeking Work Plus "Relief" Cases ... . .213
1Cf. Ronald H. Beattie, Juadf* Criminal Statistios, Oldo, Minnesota, and the, District of Columbia, 1988 (U. S. Bureau of the Census, Government Printing Office
VAN B. SHAW
Population and the Crime Rate Based on Offenses Known to Police is .645. (Again, the closer this figure approaches 1.00 the greater is the relationship.)
A strikingly different picture is shown by the coefficients of correlation when the crime rate is based upon offenses known to police (Table II). 'In these cases at least three characteristics are seen to be of significance. They are (1) urbanization, (2) edu-cational attainment, and (3) economic instability.
Urbanization: Since the coefficients for offenses known to
police and total population of the county (.645) and per cent of population urban (.717) are both quite great it is clearly evident that urbanization and offenses co-exist to a great degree in Minnesota counties. This conforms to the results of a majority of studies concerning the relative frequency of crime in rural and urban areas.2 The relationship is greater here than with any other characteristic within the present study.
Education: Of second importance is the educational
attain-ment of the population., It matters little whether this be of males (.510) or females (.554) since the correlation is nearly the same in either case. The indication would be that the highly educated and the criminals live in the same areas. Since both character-istics are common to city life, we need not conclude that the well educated are also the criminal. We might well observe, however, that education has not been of such calibre or quality that it enables the educated to arrange society in such a fashion as to eliminate criminal behavior.8
Economic Instability: To a lesser degree than either
urbani-zation or educational attainment, but sufficiently to be statis-tically significant, economic instability would seem characteristic of populations having high crime rates.4 Since the rate is higher
2 For summaries of such studies, see Pitirim A. Sorokin; Carle C. Zimmerman; and Charles J. Galpin, A Bstematio Sourcebook of Bural Sociology. (The Univer-sity of Minnesota Press, 1931) II, 266-342; Pitirim A. Sorokin and Carle C. Zim-merman, Principles of Xstral-Urban Sociology (Henry Holt and Company, 1929) pp.
370-402; and Walter C. Recldess, Criminal Behavior, (McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 1940) pp. 82, 83, and 87.
3 For other studies of the relationship "of educational attainment to criminality, see 1'opudation, Special Report on Institutional Population, (Bureau of the Census, Government Printing Office, 1943) p. 6; The Prisoner's Antecedents, (Bureau of the Census, Government Printing Office, 1929) p. 19; Mabel A. Elliott and Francis E. Merrill, Social Disorganization, (Harper and Brothers, New York, 1933) p. 108; Arthur F. Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill, 1933) p. 6.
4 For summaries of studies of the relationship between economic status and crim-inality see: William A. Bonger, Criminality and Economic Conditions (Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, 1916) and Thorsten Sellin, Research Memorandum on Crime,
in the Depression, (Social Science Research Council Bulletin 27, 1937.) For a study
employing essentially the same procedure as the present study but based on a com.-parison of a number of cities instead of counties, see William F. Ogburn, "Factos in Variation of Crime Among Cities", Journal of the American Stattistical
Asso-ciation, Vol. 30, March 1935, pp. 12-24.
CBIME RATES IN MINNESOTA
for those unemployed and seeking work (.454) than for that same group combined with "reliefers" (.213) it would be possi-ble to speculate whether (1) relief tends to reduce the crime rate, or (2) relief is more likely to be given to those who have fewer tendencies toward crime. However, the difference is hardly suf-ficient to make this field of investigation profitable.
At any rate, the study has indicated that counties whose popu-lations have a higher rate of offenses known to police are also (1) more urban in nature, (2) populated with better educated people, and (3) more likely to contain numerous individuals whose economy is unstable and insecure than are counties with lower crime rates.
Since greater educational attainment and economic instability as reflected in relief and unemployment are characteristic of city populations; it was deemed necessary to calculate multiple and partial correlations to judge the combined co-existence of these characteristics, and to judge the importance of each with the other factors held constant. The results are tabulated in Tables III and IV below. Thus line one in Table III may be read-The coefficient of correlation (R) between the Crime Rate Based on Offenses Known to Police (c) with the combined factors of ur-banization (u), educational attainment (e), and per cent of population seeking work (w) is .763. (Again, the closer this figure approaches 1.00 the greater is the relationship.)
Table II
MULTIPLE CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS
Rc.uew .763 R--Coefficient of Multiple Correlation
Rc.ew .658 c-crime rate based on offenses known to police Rc.uw .694 u-per cent of population urban
Re.ue .731 e-median educational grade, males 25 and over w-per cent of population 14 and over seeking.work
Examination of this table shows that the correlation based on a combination of all three independent variables with the de-pendent variable results in a higher correlation coefficient than when only two of the independent variables in combination are used. The multiple correlation is also higher than that resulting from any one of the single correlations formerly computed. Thus, although urbanization may be the most significant characteristic of populations of counties with high offense rates, the greater the educational attainment and the more unemployed those city populations are, the more likely their crime rates are to be even higher. Line one of Table IV may be read-The coefficient of partial correlation (r) of the Crimes Known to Police (c) with urbanization (u) when educational attainment (e) and per cent
VAY B. SHAW[
seeking work (w) are held constant is .513. (Again, the.nearer this figure approaches 1.00 the greater is the relationship.)
Table IV
COEFFICIENTS OF PARTIAL CORRELATION
rcu.ew .513 r-coefficient of partial correlation rce.uw .44- Other symbols as in Table III above.
rcw.ue .317
Table IV reveals that the above assumption concerning urban-ization as the most significant single correlate is a correct one. A partial correlation with educational attainment and unemploy-ment held constant is considerably higher than a correlation with either of these factors when urbanization is held constant. In each case, however, the factors show correlations of significant statistical proportion.
One other relationship examined by the study seems -signifi-cant. If the crime rate based on convictions in district courts and the crime rate based upon offenses known to police were equally valid measures of total criminality of the population, the corre-lation of each with a given popucorre-lation characteristic should be nearly the same and their correlation with each other should be nearly perfect. Actually no such relationships exist. A compari-son of Tables I and II shows that there is no agreement in their correlation with any single item in the population characteristics. The coefficient of correlation between the two crime rates is only .205. Most authorities (Vold, Sellin, Reckless, Sutherland, and others) agree that offenses known to police constitute our most satisfactory measure of criminality. If this is true, the present study would indicate that studies based on judicial trials and convictions, institutional populations, and other statistics fur-ther removed from the crime are completely inadequate indica-tions of the total criminality of a community. It would also indi-cate that studies of the "causes" of crime as revealed by interviews and case histories of convicted criminals are more than likely to be heavily weighted in a given direction and not truly representative of crime and criminals in general. Accept-ance of this observation would throw grave doubt upon the validity of many of our more prominent studies in the field of
criminology.
Su&mmary and Conclusions
It would seem from the preceding evidence that the following conclusions concerning crime in Minnesota counties are
war-ranted:
CIME BATES IN MINNESOTA
